‘Possibly.’
‘Do you know, dear papa, there is a little hole just over the mantelshelf in my room, and the other day I saw something hanging down from it. I thought it was a bit of string, and I went up to it and pulled it. Then there came a little squeak, and I screamed. What do you suppose I had laid hold of? It was a mouse’s tail. Was that not an odd thing, papa, for the wee mouse to sit in its run and let its tail hang down outside?’
‘Yes, very odd.’
‘Papa, how did all those beautiful things come into the house which I found in the chest upstairs? And why were you so cross with me for putting them on?’
The old man’s face changed at once, the wild look came back into his eye, and his hand which clasped her wrist clutched it so convulsively, that she felt his nails cut her tender skin.
‘Eve!’ he said, and his voice quivered, ‘never touch them again. Never speak of them again. My God!’ he put his hand to his brow and wiped the drops which suddenly started over it, ‘my God! I fear, I fear for her.’
Then he turned his agitated face eagerly to her, and said—
‘Eve! you must take him. I wish it. I shall have no peace till I know you are in his hands. He is so wise and so assured. I cannot die and leave you alone. I wake up in the night bathed in a sweat of fear, thinking of you, fearing for you. I imagine all sorts of things. Do you not wish to go to Lanherne? Then take Mr. Coyshe. He will make you a good husband. I shall be at ease when you are provided for. I cannot die—and I believe I am nearer death than you or Barbara, or even the doctor, supposes—I cannot die, and leave you here alone, unprotected. O Eve! if you love me do as I ask. You must either go to Lanherne or take Mr. Coyshe. It must be one or the other. What is that?’ he asked suddenly, drawing back in the bed, and staring wildly at her, and pointing at her forehead with a white quivering finger. ‘What is there? A stain—a spot. One of my black spots, very big. No, it is red. It is blood! It came there when I was wounded by the scythe, and every now and then it breaks out again. I see it now.’
‘Papa!’ said Eve, shuddering, ‘don’t point at me in that way, and look so strange; you frighten me. There is nothing there. Barbie washed it off long ago.’
Then he wavered in his bed, passing one hand over the other, as washing—’It cannot wash off,’ he said, despairingly. ‘It eats its way in, farther, farther, till it reaches the very core of the heart, and then——’ he cast himself back and moaned.